Welcome to the Forum Archive!

Years of conversation fill a ton of digital pages, and we've kept all of it accessible to browse or copy over. Whether you're looking for reveal articles for older champions, or the first time that Rammus rolled into an "OK" thread, or anything in between, you can find it here. When you're finished, check out the boards to join in the latest League of Legends discussions.

Pure Builds... Why?

Fights in this game already last a long time compared to the other games in this genre, so if you think they're quick fights now you'd be in for a surprise if you ever play HoN or DotA.

Champion builds are the way they are because, generally, they're the most optimized version of what that champion needs. If they need a lot of AD, then they're going to build a lot of AD. If their one skill that scales with AP is pointless to get AP on, you won't see them build any AP at all unless that AP is a byproduct of picking up some other item. Purposefully building sub-optimal item choices for the sake of "dragging fights out" is just not a good idea in a competitive game. Maybe if you only ever played by yourself against bots you could get away with this, but you're in a game with 9 other people, and all of these people want to win the game. To win, they're going to try to build only the good items their champion needs to perform.

Do explain how any champion doesn't need a little defense. I understand for stealth and ranged characters, but for nothing else does pure building make sense to me.

IMO, because that's what the tanks do. My job is to go in, soak up damage, stun their powerhouses, throw taunts, and otherwise be an annoyance, so that my AD friends don't need to worry about building defensively and can focus on completely offensive items, to maximize their power.

For example, I often lane with a friend who usually plays Vayne or Trynd, as I play Shen, Leona, or Taric. Both Shen and Taric can heal their ally, reducing the need for defensive items early on, and all three have CC of some type, so if my ally gets focused or we get ganked, I can help him out. If it costs me my life to save his kill streak, so be it. The CC also allows me to get him fed, but that's irrelevant.

By the end (or mid) of the game, if I've done my job, my Trynd with the Infinity, Phantom, and Berserker's can kill almost anything as long as he doesn't have to initiate in the team fight, which, again, is my job as the tank. If he HAD built defensive items, he wouldn't be nearly as good in team fights.

It's called Min-maxing, and the best characters in any RPG type game do it. From D&D to Neverwinter nights, the best players will make each character dramatically overpowered in a single stat. Though, before people talk about how stupid that is, you have to consider each stat as multiple ones in this game. (Total attack damage being a mix of attack damage and attack speed).

You minmax based under the assumption that your team mates are minmaxing stats different from yours. This is why Tanks exist. Tanks are the characters that are Minmaxed to have longevity in a fight. They exist to absorb the damage that would go to other characters, allowing players to minmax their DPS and not have to worry about their ability to take damage.

That's great on paper and all, but in reality you almost always need to build some defense. In close games that is, if it's a stomp, build w/e you want.

The results speak for themself- as previously stated, I as a full tank with my friend as a full carry can succeed in the closest of games- except those where top and mid on our team are feeding. And even then, if both he and I have "min-max'ed" right, we can sometimes carry the team just the two of us. It may seem like it's better to build non-pure, and that may be true for some champs, or if you don't have a good min-max'ed build, or if you just don't do good with pure champs. But if you can min-max (and play it) properly, and your team does, overall, you WILL do better.

Back in the days of DotA, I used to get bracers or some sort of damage mitigation item on EVERY hero. In League of Legends, two things have happened to me:
1. Heroes are more durable
2. I'm better at positioning

These have contributed to overall reduce the amount of mitigation I buy in a game. Obviously if someone's getting stupidly fed, I put some defense into my build, but there are lots of heroes whose best defense, frankly, is their mobility.

Do explain how any champion doesn't need a little defense. I understand for stealth characters, but for nothing else does pure building make sense to me.

In the case of ranged AD carries, generally you're going to die if you're ever caught out of position no matter what kind of survivability you have, and if you have enough survivability to survive being caught out of position, then you don't have the damage that your team is relying upon to win teamfights. This means that you're no longer a threat and aren't helping your team. For these types of champions, positioning and in-built escape/kiting tools are their defense. They can't afford to build much, if any, defensive items beyond a potential Bloodthirster since their goal is to defeat the enemy champions as quickly as possible, relying on their own abilities and their team to provide the defense that they lack. The one exception to this is typically Banshee's Veil, which is picked up mostly for the spellshield so that one time you're caught out of position against someone with CC won't instantly spell death.

If you're a melee anything, then you're going to be getting defense no matter what, so they clearly aren't the champions that you're talking about. This leaves ranged AP and support champions.

A lot of AP items have durability somewhere built in. Abyssal Sceptre, Hourglass, Will of the Ancients, Rod of Ages, Rylais, etc. You almost can't avoid picking up one of these items if you want the most AP possible, so even "glass cannon AP" has some kind of in-built survivability unless you're stacking AA Staves and Deathcaps, which is a really bad idea by the way.

That leaves supports. Supports generally build boots and gold/10 items, picking up an aura or two if they have the time between wards and oracles. Now, these auras provide some kind of durability since usually they pick up an Aegis, but no one is going to pretend that a single Aegis is actual durability. Supports though are just like ranged AD in that they rely on their team to protect them so they can do their thing. They don't need items to perform their role, which is why they prioritize wards and items that increase gold generation so they can get these wards, since they generally aren't killing any minions.

If you're seeing people that play things that aren't Ranged AD or Supports as "pure" whatever, then they're playing wrong or they're playing a specific champion like Riven. She gets survivability from raw AD thanks to her shield, but even she'll usually build a GA at some point to supplement it.

It's called Min-maxing, and the best characters in any RPG type game do it. From D&D to Neverwinter nights, the best players will make each character dramatically overpowered in a single stat. Though, before people talk about how stupid that is, you have to consider each stat as multiple ones in this game. (Total attack damage being a mix of attack damage and attack speed).

You minmax based under the assumption that your team mates are minmaxing stats different from yours. This is why Tanks exist. Tanks are the characters that are Minmaxed to have longevity in a fight. They exist to absorb the damage that would go to other characters, allowing players to minmax their DPS and not have to worry about their ability to take damage.

Really? Because the first thing I do in a team fight is take out the threats, which always have high attack, and low defense. Some good a tank does then.